Friday, January 11, 2013

On the way to the top?

Exodus @ Spiel '12 Essen

When I was working on the design of Exodus: Proxima Centauri and I saw the game growing under my eyes, I set quite high expectations. It was my third game and my most important project, something in which I strongly believed. But... (there's always a but) NSKN is still a small publisher with limited reach to distribution channels and that prevents our games to be in the spotlight. So, I had to dial down my expectations and set my hopes to a realistic level.

Just after Spiel '12 was over, I asked the other member of out team where would they see Exodus in half a year on the BoardGameGeek charts. The most optimistic answer was somewhere around place 2000 if we're really lucky. I dared a more optimistic estimation, hoping to see Exodus reach top 1000 before the end of 2013.

It's January, a long time before the end of the year, but the progress Exodus has made up the charts is significant.

In October, Exodus was ranked 4800th on the BGG games chart and there was only one preview out. Today things look completely different. Exodus benefits from more than 10 reviews in 5 languages and the famous Tom Vasel ranked the game 3rd in his preferences for 2012 after giving it a great review (9.5/10).

On the BGG charts, Exodus has climbed up to place 3500 in the beginning of December last year and yesterday it just broke into top 2500,a ll these without reaching the hobby stores in the United States. With and average rating of 8/10, I am have reason to hope that the ascension of Exodus will no stop here.

For a major publisher this would not be a significant accomplishment, but for our size and history it's something to be proud of.

I am hoping that the end of this year will prove me right and that more and more people will open and play Exodus: Proxima Centauri and that all of them will be just as content as the games who have already played and expressed their opinions.